The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative
The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to encourage and recognize hospitals and birthing centers that offer an optimal level of care for infant feeding.
The BFHI assists hospitals in giving mothers the information, confidence, and skills needed to successfully initiate
and continue breastfeeding, and gives special recognition to hospitals that have done so.
The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding are:
Three Delaware hospitals, Beebe Healthcare, Milford Memorial Hospital, and Kent General Hospital, have received the "Baby-Friendly Hospital" designation.
The BFHI assists hospitals in giving mothers the information, confidence, and skills needed to successfully initiate
and continue breastfeeding, and gives special recognition to hospitals that have done so.
The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding are:
- Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.
- Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy.
- Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding.
- Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within an hour of birth.
- Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain lactation, even if they should be separated from their infants.
- Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.
- Practice "rooming in" by allowing mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day.
- Encourage breastfeeding on demand.
- Give no artificial nipples, pacifiers, dummies, or soothers to breastfeeding infants.
- Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or birthing center.
Three Delaware hospitals, Beebe Healthcare, Milford Memorial Hospital, and Kent General Hospital, have received the "Baby-Friendly Hospital" designation.